The only thing cooler than watching a burnout is watching it in infrared

Burning rubber on a street corner is an undeniably stupid thing to do, but if you feel like ripping off a nasty burnout on your own property and without endangering any bystanders, they can be delightfully entertaining. Add a ridiculously high-tech infrared camera to the mix and you’ve got yourself a recipe for some real eye candy.

YouTubers Engineering Explained had both a suitably powerful sports car and a fancy Flir T1K thermal imaging system handy, and decided to combine them into one extremely awesome video. It’s equal parts awesome and informative, which makes it perfect.

The car in question, a Honda S2000, does a fine job of getting its rubber feet red hot, and the perfect pattern of hot rubber the tires leave on the pavement is pretty cool to see. As the rubber begins to reach the point of disintegration you can easily see hot bits of rubber being spat out both in front and behind the spinning wheel. It’s a really interesting way to look at something most of us have seen many, many times before, and should please both science nuts and gearheads alike.

The camera being used to film the mayhem — the Flir T1K — is an extremely powerful little gadget. It’s also quite expensive, with prices ranging from $40,000 to $50,000 depending on where you look. Engineering Explained has shot a few videos with the fancy camera, including one of the same S2000’s engine bay as the vehicle’s motor heats up.